This article is about how to enhance your online branding. It provides you with some information as to how to start, what you need and how you can get your online branding working for you.

Just how do you enhance your online branding? There are many ways to do so. Some are common strategies that you may find are expensive such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising), Direct Mail Campaigns and so forth.

These strategies need not be expensive and can be ultimately something that you can afford and receive in enhancing your online branding.

Steps

1

Work on your Branding.

Branding is all about TRUST. Consumers, businesses, people will look at your branding, read your content and search for you on the search engines. Ultimately if they recognize you, read testimonials or have heard of you by Word of Mouth, they will trust you, your products and services.

Brand awareness is fundamental when it comes to enhancing your online branding. There are many strategic ways of enhancing your exposure online. There are cost effective ways of getting your branding out there in the space and doing a multiple of techniques that can help increase your Brand Awareness/Brand Recognition.

2

Increase your Online Presence

Online is a great way of gaining the right attention, providing credibility on the world wide web and finding the best possible ways to enhance your online branding. Whether your a small, medium or large company, online presence is crucial and you can reach millions of people world wide with the branding of your products/services.

An online presence is one of the strongest attributes of your brand and its well advised that one gets started with their online branding sooner than later as just like with its offline counterpart, mind share in branding waits for no one. The cycle of online branding takes time, but has be achieved much quicker online in a few cases. Due to the potential viral nature of the web, online branding can allow for faster growth than traditional branding might.

3

Work on Your Website

Having a website to start off with is the first step and equally having a website that is branded correctly, easy to navigate, logical flow of information, juicy content, profile and site map are just some of things that are needed. Remember your website is the face of your business. It represents who you are and what you are about. It needs to look presentable, clean, informative and sticky. Sticky being it needs to grab attention, keep visitors on your website, browsing at what you have to offer.

4

Make all of your decisions.

What is my purpose for my website?

Do I plan to sell products/services online?

Do I need a brochure or a catalog for people to download and print?

Do I need a CMS? (Content Management System) website whereby I can update my own photos, content, add pages, change colours and so forth.

5

Do I want to generate leads and sales from my website?

Think about how you want to brand yourself online to your customers/clients.

6

Search Engine Optimization

There is no use in having a well-branded, beautifully displayed, easy to navigate, logical flow and great products/services if it is not easily found on the Major Search Engines.

Your website needs to be built with Search Engine Optimization practices in mind. If it isn't, you are wasting your time and money therefore only building a website that will be uploaded into the never never land of the world wide world. We all know that consumers use the internet on a frequent basis and will look for products/services via search engine channels (Main ones Google, Yahoo and MSN). If you are not listed, consumers may not trust or find you a credible source, therefore losing potential leads and sales.

7

Start Your Own Blog

This is a great tool that can compliment your online branding efforts. Blogs are great to write extra content about ideas, thoughts, strategies, powerful tools that may have that people would be interested in and any other related business factors that you can contribute to. Blogs provide a great platform for you to engage with your customers online (New and Potential) and connect/inspire your readers with great information. With great technology such as the RSS Feeds, this allows your material to be upload onto a RSS Feed, reaching more potential customers that are interested in what you have to say.

8

Use of Competitions, Word of Mouth and Incentives

Take advantage of increasing your web traffic, leads and sales by discussing something that is happening in your business online. Have an area on your website that can showcase a competition, incentive and post it on your blog in more detail. Word of Mouth is still and will be a very important factor when it comes to enhancing your online brand presence, so create a viral buzz online that others will talk about e.g. Free Seminar, Free Consultation, Webinars and so forth.

If you haven't done so already, join Twitter. It's a great way to tweet your competition, prize etc and create a viral buzz to people that may be interested in what you are offering.

9

Build your Online Brand.

Get to know your target market. Understand who they are, what they like/dislike, what are they searching for, needing, wanting.

Utilize an effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan that will increase your search ranking and generate traffic of leads and sales to your website. Build your reputation, be a credible authority and enhance your online branding through great strategies that will get you present online.